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About Configuring Recurring Appointments

You can control the behavior of non-supported recurring meetings with no end date by using the parameter FanLimit, which is a number representing an absolute number of days in the future. The following sections summarize how the Siebel application handles recurring meetings.

Supported Meetings

Daily, Weekly, Monthly, and Yearly meetings are supported. Any recurring meetings with no end date are created in the Siebel application exactly as in Exchange. For example, if there is a recurring weekly meeting with no end date in Exchange, then there will be a recurring weekly meeting with no end date in the Siebel application.

All other recurrence patterns are not directly supported by the Siebel Calendar itself. For example, meetings scheduled for every other week cannot be directly entered into the Siebel Calendar. To address this inconsistency, SSSE performs special processing to ensure that the Exchange and Siebel calendars contain the same appointments.

Unsupported Meetings with an End Date

For unsupported recurring meetings with an end date, the meeting is fanned, which means that individual meetings are created to replicate the recurring meeting in Exchange.

For example, if a meeting in Exchange goes from April 1 to June 24 every other week, then the Siebel application creates seven individual meetings: April 1, April 15, April 29, and so on through June 27.

The Siebel application creates as many individual appointments as are needed to replicate the meetings in Exchange. The FanLimit parameter does not affect these meetings.

Unsupported Meetings without an End Date

For unsupported recurring meetings without an end date, it is impossible to create an infinite number of individual meetings to replicate the meetings in Exchange. Therefore, the meeting is initially fanned based on based on the value of the FanLimit parameter. However, added occurrences of the meeting are created as time passes, to replicate the recurring meeting without an end date.

For example, assume that FanLimit has the value 60. There is a meeting in Exchange that starts April 1, continues every other week, and lasts forever. Also, assume the first sync is on April 1.

Initially, the Siebel application creates five instances of this meeting with five instances. The reason is that May 31 is 60 days after April 1; between April 1 and May 31, a meeting that occurs every other week will take place on April 1, April 15, April 29, May 13, and May 27.

The next instance would take place on June 10, but the Siebel application has not yet created that meeting, because it is outside the FanLimit.

As time passes, the FanLimit window moves forward. On April 2, the FanLimit is June 1, on April 3, the FanLimit is June 2, and so on, until on April 11, the FanLimit is June 10.

If the PIMSI dispatcher's FanLimit job is running daily, then the June 10 occurrence of the meeting will be created on April 11, as this occurrence is now within the FanLimit.

As time passes, new occurrences will continue to be created, replicating a recurring meeting with no end date.